Lord Granville postponed to next Monday the discussion of the
policy of the Afghan war, but asked for explanations on tho two points which have attracted so much attention lately,—the incorrect history of Lord Cranbrook's despatch ; and the untrue impression given to the House of Lords as to the Afghan policy of the Government on June 15th, 1877, by Lord Salisbury. Lord Cranbrook, in a very hot speech, took all the responsibility of his despatch, and justified the attack on the Government of 1873 as the reasonable and natural construction which he put on the communications between Lord Northbrook and Mr. Gladstone's Government in that year. lie maintained that the Duke of Argyll did not directly sanction the assurances which Lord Northbrook wished to give, and that as far as he could judge, Lord North- brook did appear to him to have delayed an explicit under- standing with Shere Ali, in consequence of the vague and dis- couraging character of the Duke's telegrams. He did not deny that Lord Northbrook might have construed these telegrams other- wise, and might have regarded them as sanctioning heartily all he desired to do ; but be did deny that the construction he had put on these transactions was otherwise than a reasonable construc- tion, such as he was quite warranted in honour and common-sense in putting. Lord Northbrook's reply was simple,—that the assur- ances given by him were actually as strong as any be had asked the right to give, and that Lord Cranbrook had kept this back ; that so far as they affected the proposed alliance with Shere All against external aggression, they were even less, not more, hampered by conditions, than Lord Lytton's own proposals ; and finally, that if Lord Cranbrook had really wished to represent fairly the transactions referred to, he might have shown the paragraph in question to three Members of the then Indian Government, who were on Lord Cranbrook's Council, but who never heard of the despatch till they read it in the newspapers.
